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in over my head.

dean owens

dean owens

Sep 23, 2008
718
25
pittsboro, nc
www.ccf-unc.org
#1
hey guys. i'm looking around a pa stuff and i'm honestly a little lost. here's the deal.

i'm a campus minister and our ministry meets on campus in the student union. so portability is nice. we currently have a church that is letting us use (and will probably just give us) a fender passport. it does the job but it only has 4 inputs. with keyboards, guitar, bass and computer (for videos) we don't have any room for vocals.

i want to keep this basic setup but add to it. from what i understand, i could get an unpowered board and then plug it into one of the inputs of the passport and use it as our power amp and speakers. i'd like to do this. but i'm really unsure as to the board to look for. being a non-profit in these times doesn't give us a lot of money. but i don't want to buy junk that i'll have to replace in a few years. and i'm thinking that a 12-16 channel should give us plenty of room to grow.

so, could someone with a little knowledge of what's out there help me out? i need to know what are some good brands/boards to look at for a decent price. there isn't really a price range or limit right now... because i don't know what is reasonable. i would also like to get a snake for the board as well. is one snake as good as another... or are there snakes that are known for lasting and snakes that are known for dying?

thanks so much for your help.
 
#2
I think the Passport amp will not be large enough to provide adequate support for your band. If you must use it for a power amp, you could couple it with a used Mackie 1604 VLZ. They go for about $250 and up and are very common and available.

I think a better option for a simple setup would be a used Yamaha EMX5000-12. Great powered mixers for the price. Pair this with a couple used Yamaha Club Series 15's and couple floor monitors and you have a nice simple PA.

As far as a snake, higher quality ones are higher priced, but this is mostly due to ruggedness. If your snake isn't moving around venue to venue, it shouldn't make much difference. It's really just cable, connectors, and solder points.
 
#3
Running keyboards and bass guitar through a passport is a recipe for disaster. They are not designed for this. If you want to buy cheap look at Peavey,yamaha, or maybe carvin. Maybe a Peavey PV14 mixer and a pair of Peavey PR15D powered speakers. This will still cost you over around $1200.00. A 16 channel snake would cost probably at least $300.00 with better quality costing more.
 
#6
Do a total channel count. Buy a mixer that will handle your needs, and plug the outputs of the new mixer into the inputs of the passport. When you blow up the passport speakers, get a power amp, and a pair of bigger speakers. Then give the passports back to the church and say "thanks" and run away. :-)
 
#7
thanks guys. i don't know that i explained well enough though. although bass and keys are going through the passport, we aren't turning it up very loud. we're talking a smaller campus ministry (i have about 20-30 students on a wednesday night). it's just that the room we're in sucks up sound so we need a little something to help people in the back of the room hear what's going on. our "drums" are a djembe that is heard without any mics on it.

one of the reasons i wanted an unpowered board is because i figured we could grow into it. when the passport can no longer handle the size we have grown to i can pick up a power amp and some larger speakers. although i have no problem buying used, i'm pretty sure my board is going to want me to buy new... which clearly costs more... which is why i'm thinking of slowly adding to this. plus, at this point there isn't the man power to lug around a full sound system every wednesday night.

y'all threw out names that i'm familiar with so that gives me enough to look for. i know mackie, carvin, peavey and yamaha... i'll start looking around at these.

about snakes... we'll have to move it each week. it won't be able to be set and left. are there "brands" of snakes? how do i know if i'm looking at an ok snake verses a good snake?

thanks again for your help guys. i know the passport isn't the greatest and is probably just meant for a gospel quartet... but it's doing it's job fine with us... we just need more inputs. and i know that more inputs means it's going to have to work harder... but it'll last us another year or two at least. again, thanks and if you can help me out on the snake issue i think i'll have enough to go on.
 
#9
The college group at my church has a passport, but that's only for the speaker and acoustic guitar uses. For your size rooms, just run the vocals and videos through the PA. Have the guitar/keyboard/bass players bring amps. You can run any of them in the PA, but there won't be much bottom end. At the least, the bassist should bring an amp and use his channel for vocals.

Also, getting the speakers up to ear-level or higher and aiming the amps up will increase your range of clarity.
 
#10
There are several ways to do this and you're getting some good advice.

I went the powered mixer/passive cab route and it has proven reliable. Mackie powered mixer/Yamaha speakers. I don't know if I would go that way again. Certainly many versions of this method out there. The brand names change.

You are correct in that a passive mixer will allow for easy expansion/trading up. Particularly if you choose to go with powered speakers of some kind. If I were to do it again I would seriously consider that route.

Some advantages to powered speakers are:

redundant power in the event something goes down

Most models can be used as smaller stand alone units for smaller events or public speaking needs.

Often, more watts/dollar spent

Can also be used as powered monitors

The other side of the coin is that you may be able to score a real deal on some used passive cabs right about now.
 

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